CPU idles at 40-50 percent??

OKay. I have nothing running. My taskmanager shows all programs using 0 cpu. System idle process = 90 but my TOTAL CPU USAGE is 40-50%

When i launch a game, it just stays pinned at 100 percent. I have no idea what is causing this.

codmw2 lags because of it.

PLease help.

 

Post a screen shot of task manager processes and make sure you have show processes from all users checked.

 

I just installed windows 7 30 minutes ago.

It always bounces between 40 and 50 and spikes to 90ish when i open firefox....

 

Does it look the same right after a reboot?

 

Yes. It does. This happened when i was running windows vista too. I have no idea whats going on.

 

Does it also happen directly after installing the OS?

Normally if a process is running in the background but hiding itself it could be a virus. I'm assuming you're not getting your OS from torrents. Shut off your network card to make sure it's not related to any weird network activity.

Another thing you can try is creating another profile to see if it happens under a different profile.

If it happens immediately after installing the OS I would be worried about a piece of hardware going or gone. Especially your hard disk. Might be worth it to run a scan and check for bad blocks.

 

Guessing that Alienware Command Center can be blamed here - it caused havoc for me as well in Windows 7. Disable the fusion service and see if things improve

You can manage all the same settings manually in windows

 

My copy of windows 7 is legit. I tried disabling all network stuff and i made a new user account. The problem persists. =[

I really hope is not hardware. I already had to have dell replace the motherboard on this thing.

 

Use the Vista 64-bit drivers for the chipset and wireless, NOT the Windows 7 ones - this helped for me ALOT when I had the same problem

 

I'm doing the windows chkdsk now. I'm on my iPod touch lol.

I'll try everything else when this is done.

I already installed the windows 7 chipsets drivers. Should I install the vista ones over it?

 

I have this same problem. It seems to be caused by "System Interrupts"
Check your Resource Monitor under Performance in the Task Manager.. does it look like this? (notice the top item, hogging 40% of my CPU)

I can stop it by disabling the wireless adpater, doing a reboot and then re-enabling it, but this gets annoying for every time I want to shut down.

If anyone has any ideas, that would be much appreciated...

 

My problem has corrected itself after i did a disk check...lol

But i have discovered another problem. I cannot find my wireless network when my Ethernet cable is unplugged, but i can find wireless networks when its plugged in. Worked okay on vista.

Anyone have that problem?

 

I think my problem is solved. I uninstalled the Wireless Adapter and the nVidia nForce Ethernet driver at the same time and let Windows install them back. It works perfectly now, perhaps it will fix your problem too.

 

I had the same or similar problem. It turned out that my video card(ATI RADEON HD 4650) was sending interrupt storms. Something on the video card was freaking out and asking for CPU attention thousands of times a second, which caused my CPU usage at idle to be very high, around 30 - 50% ! I replaced the card with my old one, and the processor began idling properly again. I will be returning the card for a replacement.

I hope this helps someone figgure out their problem faster than I did!